Deadly Demands: real life hostage situations (but funny!)

If you can never (and I mean EVER) get enough of hilariously cheesy reenactment scenes interspersed with disturbing real life footage interspersed with deadly serious confessional interviews, then you may just find true crime reality TV nirvana with Deadly Demands, which premieres on the ID network (Investigation Discovery) on Monday, March 14, 2016 at 10:00/9:00c.

Deadly Demands is a six-part series that goes into real life hostage situations, which no doubt there's an insatiable desire to learn more about due to the approximately 1.6 million films and TV series that have depicted such scenes and incidents to date.

Here's a Deadly Demands trailer, which teases a tale of marriage gone tragically and horrifically sour:

And you know what that means... queue the lame-tastic reenactments, as performed by what we must assume are the Not Ready for Prime Time But Just Right for ID Network Reenactment Players (or NRPTBJRIDN).

"When Nancy divorces Richard, she tries to move on," a steely-voiced voice over guy drops on us, as we see a male cast member of the NRPTBJRIDN smash a vase in front of a female cast member of the NRPTBJRIDN. We presume that means that he's angry. Very angry, in fact.

"He did not react well to this, but he takes desperate measures to keep her," some guy says via confessional interview. "I knew it!" I said the first time I watched this pivotal Deadly Demands moment. Three people near my computer looked at me when I said that. And then a librarian shushed me. The librarian did that because I viewed this footage at a public library. And you know what? That librarian was correct in enforcing that Local Library's Public Computer Policy.

"He's got a gun!" we hear someone from NRPTBJRIDN scream followed by some woman telling us: "He was holding Nancy against her will."

At this point in the Cheesy Reenactment Footage Timeline (CRFT) we jump from some house to some parking garage. "As he grows more unhinged, can authorities save Nancy?" steely voice dude chimes in.

And then we head back to a house or something. This roller coaster ride is wilder than a Quentin Tarantino extravaganza, I'd wager. And by "wager" I mean a value no more or no less than a United State Treasury-issued ten cent piece.

We then get a dose of the truly terrifying as we hear what's presumably the Real Life Richard announcing over a phone line, "I'm in charge, you listen to me, pal!" The screen relays these words via digital content display.

While his tone is pretty scary, we have to take the time and effort to recognize that it's so nice and gracious for Richard to refer to the law enforcement official as "pal." Richard follows this up by announcing, "Listen, I'm done playing this game. She has to die..."

I'm going to go ahead and declare that that's Simply Not Cool for Richard to say something like that.

"Or will he get his ultimate revenge?" voice over dude says, and we can take that as being a serious and bonafide "cliffhanger," my friends.

Not for nothing, but the real life Richard sounds a lot like the subject of Netflix' Making a Murderer.

Which, if you're into true crime stuff on the real, would probably be worth more of your time than Deadly Demands. But if that's your true crime reality scene, please sit back and enjoy the fine performances of the NRPTBJRIDN my friends. Enjoy.

By Eric - TV Geek Army "Revered Leader"

About the author

Eric is the publisher and revered leader of TV Geek Army… at least in his own mind. TV Geek Army is a place for serious TV reviews and news for serious fans of great television. Contact: eric-[at]-tvgeekarmy.com